Archive for the ‘Answered Prayer’ Category

There’s a vast difference between expectation and expectancy. These two mindsets can be applied to just about any part of our lives. They can be applied to our life-long dreams, our marriages, our children, our friendships, our careers, our ministries. And they can also be applied to our relationship with God. Expectation expects things. It expects a certain outcome. Or that the outcome will be derived a certain way. Expectancy does not expect things. Expectancy hopes. It has faith that good will come but releases the expectation of what or how it will come about. Expectations lead to disappointments and frustration and disillusion. Expectancy leads to faith and joy and thankfulness. I recently had the privilege to attend a weekend “Encounter.” The entire purpose of the weekend was to meet with God. To encounter the One and Only. I had heard stories of others going to their Encounter, coming home saying things like, “It changed…

This post is going to be extremely informal. Quite honestly, my plate this week and next is incredibly full (for good reason!), but I just had to get on here briefly to share some amazing news––news I hope will strengthen you in your faith as it has me in mine. If you have yet to read last week’s post, Fully Convinced, I’d encourage you to do so. God’s timing of that post is just beyond words. In that post, I wrote briefly of the challenges my family and I have faced in our Ethiopian adoption. Our adoption had gotten to the point where it did not just seem impossible, but by all accounts, it was. But once again, we have seen God do the impossible! I received a call Monday, a call we have been waiting for for four and a half years, telling us of two amazing little people…

I held my Bible as I sat with one of my girls on each side of me in bed. “Do you see a pattern?” I asked. They looked at the passage and said, “What pattern?” “Look at what I’ve circled and highlighted.” Almost in unison, they read, “‘And God said…’” Pause. “‘And it was so.’” Fingers ran down the page, “‘And God said,’” they read. “‘And it was so.’” Over and over, their little fingers stopped on each of my markings. “‘And God said… And it was so.’” “Do you see it?” “I think so,” Avery said. “What do you think it means?” “It’s like God says something, and then it happens.” “Yes!” I said, with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. “Nothing is too difficult for our God. He speaks, and it is so! Just like He did in the beginning here in Genesis. Isn’t that amazing?” Both girls nodded….

There’s a song that I just can’t get out of my head. It’s called “I Am Set Free” and is written and performed by All Sons and Daughters. The chorus is what keeps playing a loop in my mind continually. In fact, I’ve even woken up hearing the lyrics several nights in a row: “I am set free oh oh oh oh I am set free oh oh oh oh It is for freedom that I am set free.” It is for freedom that I am set free––words echoing a truth, written by Paul long ago to the churches in Galatia, that said, “For freedom Christ has set us free…” But I love what comes next in this verse–– “…stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). I think we all have a tendency to slip back into old habits, back into things we’ve been freed from. When I read the…

There’s a strange dichotomy that goes on in this head of mine. The moment I gave my life to Christ, I felt a strong, relentless desire to abandon myself to God’s call to ministry. A desire to proclaim the excellencies of God to this world. To shout His praises from the highest of high mountains that all may know and see that Jesus is who He says He is. So that, as 1 Kings 8:60 says, “all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God.” I wanted to lift my voice and proclaim boldly, “Behold your God!” (Isaiah 40:9). I had been plucked out of the mire, out of a deep dark pit of despair, and I wanted others to know what I had come to know. “People need to know this,” I’d say. “God is who He says He is. He is real. And He actually does, today, what He…

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). A son, born to die––heaven sent––lay swaddled in a feeding trough. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). Immanuel––God with us. Christ the child, through whom salvation had finally come. I will provide a way, whispered God to His beloved. I will not leave you, nor will I forsake you. For, you are Mine. A promise, whispered throughout the ages, was fulfilled in that moment through the birth of this child––this beautiful child, full of grace––the Light of the world. And on that first Christmas morn, light shone like never before into the darkness, terrifying and commanding the powers of darkness to flee. But…

My girlfriend and I have been looking at marketing strategies lately. With my book coming out next June, we want to ensure we’re doing all we can to disseminate the message I’ve been entrusted with to the greatest extent possible. I’ll be talking more about that as time goes on, but I wanted to tell you about a comment my friend said to me the other day. It was a text, actually, and it said, “So I am thinking the marketing plan should be… SAYING YES TO GOD…it’s amazing how even when you don’t want to do some of what He calls us to do…if you keep saying yes, He takes care of you…He has constantly given you favor Laurie! Kudos to you for saying Yes…” I had just been given another ridiculously amazing opportunity to share my story in a major publication, and let me tell you––this assignment was…

The following is a repost of one of my most popular posts that I’ve edited and revised a bit. I believe it contains important truths for each of us to consider. What I’d like you to take away from this article more than anything else is this: we are not victims. “Victim” is not our identity. We may have been on the receiving end of evil, but that evil does not change our identity. Far too many people carrying the heavy label of victim around on their shoulders. Far too many of us are crushed beneath the weight of this false identity. It’s time to free ourselves. I never intended to be a victim. Shortly after my dad was murdered, my family and I were referred to the victim services department at the courthouse. It was the first time we were called victims, but I honestly didn’t consider myself to be…

I was following Jesus into the unknown––into my scary places. Places I did not want to go. He was calling me to walk on the water with Him––to do things I did not want to do––but I knew those very things would bring me to the place He intended, a place of blessing. Still, I was scared. It was hard, laying myself down like that. Ridiculously hard. I knew my God. I knew who He is. I knew His heart toward me. And I knew where I’d end up if I followed, but what I did not know is what that narrow rocky road would look like along the way, and quite honestly that scared me. “I feel like I’m falling apart,” I wrote in my prayer journal, sometime during this season. “[The girls and I] have been sick, my emotions are all over the board, I feel weighed down by…

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” – Isaiah 40:9 “Heaven” has been released! The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has done an incredible job with this powerful, thirty minute message, and I wanted to take a moment to share it with you. Quite honestly, I am still humbled to have been a part of this project. It’s unbelievable, really. Billy Graham has been an inspiration to me in my faith, as he has been to millions of others, since my early days as a new Christian. I remember reading his book, The Journey: Living by Faith in an Uncertain World (affiliate link), just about one year after coming to Christ. I was looking for answers, trying to figure out how to do…